


Narcosis

by Kuruccha



Category: Gintama
Genre: F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:32:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4623774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuruccha/pseuds/Kuruccha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When it comes to his wounds, the effect of ether lasts no more than two hours.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcosis

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere between Lessons 549-550, beware for spoilers!  
> This had been written to deal with my overwhelming feelings, yet somehow I didn't manage to put them silent at all. I'm so sorry for my ineptitude with english, so forgive me if some sentences may look a bit odd. I tried my best!

When it comes to his wounds, the effect of ether lasts no more than two hours.

That’s the only span of time in which Otae allows herself to watch him - those brief moments when Kondou is still far away from the angry guard of his nurses, all alone in the room she had reserved for them. (The offer came as natural: they needed a neutral island outside Shinsengumi headquarters, and Kondou always spent most of his free time at dojo Kodoukan. The dogs of the Bakufu thanked her with bowed heads and kept on calling her _Oneesan_.)

Kondou rests in the futon with closed eyes, his chest rising slightly at each breath. His face is speckled with red, wound stitched up where flesh was enough to sink the needle, skin sprinkled of disinfectant where there was flesh no more. Otae can distinguish that the whoever put the edges together has a good hand; she grew up in a dojo, after all, and cuts had never been rare.

She bends on her knees and puts a bento box near the futon. She prepared some more for the men, but reserved the most abundant for Kondou, as he’s the one who needs to get back on health; everyone else can still rob the money of their taxes, and she doesn’t see why she should be paying for their food. She certainly did not marry any of them.

With firm hand she checks that bandages are still in place, neither too hard nor too loose. (It’s an easy task, certainly more natural than preparing scrambled eggs.) He’s still asleep, yet his breathing gets heavier each time her hand pushes too strong on his wounds; but she has never been a woman of gentle manners, and probably no one knows better than him.

Once she’s done her hand lingers on his skin, from the space just above his eyebrow to the wisps of hair escaped from the bandages. She knows she must have pulled them a million times at least, trying to push him away and cast it out, but they’re less wiry than she remembers. Kondou’s breath becomes lighter. Otae tucks the thin blanket over him, then gives him a single caress, just the same she used to greet her father with, a lifetime ago, in a different futon of that same room of the dojo.

Her hand pulls away when Hijikata returns. (His face is of a curious shade of green, and Otae wonders why, as he had been one of those lucky enough to receive her food.)

They listen to the quiet breathing of the comatose gorilla, then they take turns with a single nod of heads.

 

*

 

Under the effects of ether, Kondou keeps on sleeping.

Toshirou looks at him as if he was afraid to see him run off at any moment - _tsk_ , he says to himself, _as if this guy was capable of something like that_ , then bites the filter between his teeth. The cigarette on his lips is still unlit. (It’s not like he thinks it will help him recover, or other crap like that; but their hostess has hinted that the shortest way to hell passes through mat impregnated with smell of smoke, and he knows her menace is real.)

He spots the box of pestilential food near the futon; he represses a retch thinking to those poor eggs turned into toxic material. Maybe he should sacrifice himself and eat it all to save him, but he’s not _that_ generous, so he simply cover it all with a dose of mayonnaise too abundant even by his standards. It will taste better, at least.

The gorilla is quiet, so quiet it seems unnatural. He can only think of his words, his tone, those endless talks that transformed a countryside samurai on Isao Kondou, Captain of the Shinsengumi. Those speeches that changed them all to trained dogs and made them become who they are. Kondou breathes and he comes close to hear him better, but there’s no word among his murmurs.

Hand on his wrist, his fingertips search for the beating under his scratched skin; the pulse rate is slow, but energetic nonetheless. Toushiro counts each pulsation and finally finds some peace.

He lingers on that touch for long - longer than he should and far longer than he ever intended to indulge; but Kondou’s skin is warm, and Toshirou already knows all too well how cold can be that of a corpse. Kondou is alive and he does not care about anything else.

And finally he talks; he speaks without saying a word, just to fill the silence of the room. He counts the regular chimes under his fingers, then murmurs more nonsense, never straying from him.

 

*

 

The idiot fell asleep seated again, and Okita seriously needs to refrain from pushing Hijikata forward and make him drop on his face. (And it’s just because the idiot would fall on Kondou, who already has enough wounds to pay attention to.) ( _But die, Hijikata, die._ )

He stands and look at them, Hijikata with arms folded on his chest and Kondou with his face to the ceiling; it’s a scene he doesn’t like at all, because Kondou looks like an old man on his deathbed with Hijikata as his loyal dog, while Okita has no part in that play instead, and he feels cut off again.

_You know what?,_ he would tell Kondou. _I followed your orders. I did what you said, and if you're still alive is not only because of that idiot. (Hijikata, why don’t you die in his place?)_

_I will save your life a billion times more. And I'll be better than him, and faster, and you will no more  lay on your back and stare at the ceiling. (Except when things don’t work out with your female gorilla. But that’s something not even Hijikata could fix.) (But it would be worth trying. Maybe with Hijikata dead that could change too.)_

_I can sense the reek of your blood._

_Do not eat the slop that woman prepared or you’ll be poisoned._

_Your hair is too long, Matsudaira will yell at you even now he has no right to._

_I liked you better with a ponytail. Those hair would sting me, if you would take me again on your shoulders like you used to._

He could go on and on, because he has so many things to say; but he’s not so stupid to say them out loud, especially when Kondou can’t hear them but someone else could. _(Die, Hijikata.)_ Nor he is that sentimental to watch over him as that idiot does. But he thinks back to his sister, to the outline of her body under the covers, not so different from that of the man before him. But that's a dojo and not a hospital, and dojos are made to get stronger. He looks again at Hijikata and he considers he would have wanted this option for Mitsuba too. _(Hijikata, how come you're still alive?)_

He lays his sword on the mat and lies next to Kondou, his back turning to both of them; he squints at the door, listening to their regular breathing with closed eyes. Hijikata isn’t the only light sleeper.

 

*

 

He stares at the ceiling without really knowing when he opened his eyes.

He can’t bend his phalanges, nor move his toes; the world is painted of a strange shade of white, infinitely clearer than he remembered, and he’s breathing so softly he wonders if real air is entering his lungs.

He understands almost immediately that ether is reason for his dizziness; he had suffered enough injuries to recognize its effects. That time must have been a lot more serious, though.

His mind brings back mixed memories and matches pieces randomly; blunting confuses before and after and _Isaburo, are you still alive?_ , he wonders. On Toshi and Sougo, even through unconsciousness, he has no doubt.

He stares at the ceiling and doesn’t even need to wonder where he is – it’s Dojo Kodoukan, he knows any surface inside out. He wonders if Otae prepared scrambled eggs for him, at least now he’s sick; he would eat with true pleasure, even if he’s not sure he can rely on the cooperation of his stomach.

Inside the room there’s no sounds besides his breath, and he wonders whether he’d better close his eyes and rest a little more, now he still has a chance. His skin pulls on stitched up wounds, but he doesn’t feel any pain. It will come, he knows, it will come later.

He still can’t move or turn his head, but the futon is warm and tickles his nostrils bringing him Otae’s familiar scent. In the hallway, beyond the sliding shoji, he feels a burst of the usual discussions between Sougo and Toshi, with Yamazaki who tries in vain to calm everyone down.

Kondou smiles, then falls back into induced sleep.


End file.
